The Problem with the Debate

On Tuesday, the Post and Courier published a letter I wrote about the Trayvon Martin killing ("Blaming Victim").  Friday, I received a multi-page response in the mail.  To say that the respondent put a great deal of effort into the rebuttal would be an understatement.  This dude, named "T.B.S.", gathered up all the colored pens he owns and appears to have spent hours composing this reply:

Apparently, I touched a nerve.

So I spent a bit of time considering how I might respond, if I was similarly crazed, and came up with a few tantalizing possibilities:

*  I'm so glad that you read my letter in the P & C.  It must have been very difficult.

*  And your point is...?

*  I found your letter quite well thought out, especially the colors.

*  Well, you've certainly convinced me!

Chuckles aside, I think what we have here is the whole problem with the gun control debate.  The people who most fervently believe they have the right -- in fact, the need -- to carry weapons, are those like Mr. T. B. S.  who, apart from the fact that he apparently is not at all hispanic, shares much the same paranoia and rage as Mr. Zimmerman.

The NRA and ALEC need a frightened population in order to thrive.  They pay our gun-rights politicians substantial amounts of money to fire up the fearful.  And what we end up with is crazy people who are truly afraid that if we take away their guns they will be overrun by "those people."  The people they are afraid of range from the gub'mint to the NAACP to the A-rabs to Nancy Pelosi.

In other words, they are afraid of anyone our right wing legislators tell them to be afraid of.

George Zimmerman is the living proof of why we need to outlaw guns.  And why we need to vote the fearmongers out of office.